“Herr Kahlo”: from Baden-Baden to Mexico to Baden-Baden

“Herr Kahlo” was the nickname the four Kahlo daughters gave their father, this showed both the respect and the affection they had for him.
Frida was his favourite, and Wilhelm Kahlo had a great influence on her thinking and development.

In 1950 Frida Kahlo herself described her relationship to her father:
“I loved my father because he was good to me, he helped me.
He was gifted intellectually, he explained to me my school lessons, would give me German lessons, he gave me my first set of paints at sixteen”. (from Song of herself, Salomon Grimberg).

Wilhelm Kahlo was born in Pforzheim, Germany in 1871, his family moved to Baden-Baden when he was three years old, and when his mother died, he emigrated to Mexico at the age of 18, where he died in 1941.
Even if he changed his name into the Spanish “Guillermo”, all visitors of the Casa Azul in Coyoacán observed that he was different: his German accent, the separate "cultural" world he constructed for him¬self, filled with European music (he used to play German classic music on the piano), German literature and philosophy. His rich library of German philosophers was at disposal of Frida who read Schlegel, Engel, Schiller and Schopenhauer in German before she was eighteen.

During 2010 the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund researched what influence Wilhelm Kahlo had on Frida Kahlo based on the books he used to read.
Starting on January 13 2011, the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund in Baden-Baden will present the “Wilhelm Kahlo Studio”, this is a special room dedicated to Wilhelm Kahlo. There the museum visitors will find the “Portrait of My Father”, 1951, oil on masonite, a collection of antique books which represent what Wilhelm Kahlo used to read, and original French antique furniture of around 1890.

Among the books the visitors will find an original Brockenhaus Encyclopedia of Conversation in 15 volumes from 1892, an original Schiller’s Prosa from 1890, and books of German philosophers, Italian Renaissance painters, Chess manuals from around 1900 to 1919.

As many good middle class Mexican families around 1900, the Kahlo family had old French furniture pieces in their home; it is known that from 1920 on Wilhelm Kahlo had to sell the family French furniture due to a downturn in his business as photographer.

The “Wilhelm Kahlo Studio” exhibits are in addition to the permanent exhibition of Frida Kahlo paintings: “Viva La Vida” which shows 116 oil paintings of the Mexican artist. The paintings are hand painted licensed replicas from © Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008.

The Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is a privately owned, monographic art museum founded in 2008. The Kunstmuseum exihibits only the works of Frida Kahlo. The objective of the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is to offer the visitors a complete view of the entire work of the Mexican artist, thus allowing to follow Kahlo’s development, to discover the different phases she goes through in her life: from the very early works to her maturity.
The Vision of the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is to offer the visitors a unique cultural experience that covers all the senses, and an environment that touches not only the eyes of the visitors, but their minds, and above all their hearts.
Every decision made in the creation of the museum was driven by two elements:
respect for the visitors and respect for the artists.

In addition to exhibit the artworks, the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund shows the environment of Frida Kahlo’s life: Tehuana Huipiles (blouses), jewelry, and the entire context in which the artist lived and produced her paintings. This 360°view of Kahlo’s llife and work allows the visitors to totally immerse themselves into the artworks and to better understand the artist.
The founders of the Art Museum are Hans-Jürgen Gehrke and Dr. Mariella C. Remund. Both are art patrons, collectors, and passionate art historians.
They have spent over 25 years in executive positions in multinational corporations and academic organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, USA, Spain, South America and China

Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund GmbH
Industrie Strasse 9a
76532 Baden-Baden, Germany
Tel #: +49 7221 97 11899
Press contact person: Dr. Mariella C. Remund
info@Kustmuseum-Gehrke-Remund
www.Kunstmuseum-Gehrke-Remund.de

This release was published on openPR.